by Drew Sharp, USA TODAY Sports

by Drew Sharp, USA TODAY Sports

But since the predominant organizational headgear for the Detroit Pistons the past five years resembled that of a court jester, there's understandably some excitement at The Palace of Auburn Hills that their search for a new president of basketball operations and head coach ended with a single hire.

Stan Van Gundy can coach. But Tom Gores is gambling a reported $35 million over the next five years that Van Gundy can capably juggle the daunting responsibilities of coaching a team that chews coaches up and spits them out with regular ease, while also overseeing a vast organizational cultural change.

Good luck.

Van Gundy's a recycled coach liberated from the NBA scrapheap, cleaned, polished and passed off as a fresh new vision for what would be his third team.

Nobody disputes that he knows his basketball. But if this was the best chief executive that the headhunting firm Gores commissioned to engage in a far-reaching personnel search could come up with, it's yet another example of the Pistons being more interested to engage in what's expeditious rather than what's the correct path for a franchise desperately seeking a complete rebuild.

The best candidate's often the guy you never heard of, somebody unearthed through exhaustive diligence. There was an assistant general manager out there with a wealth of knowledge from successful organizations such as the San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder that have consistently won through sound drafting.

But instead the Pistons opted for an attention grab, combining both positions to entice interest amid other more high-wattage head coaching openings with the Golden State Warriors, New York Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers.

The Spurs' Gregg Popovich became head coach after already holding the general manager title, and his team has a trusted player evaluation system in place. Doc Rivers got the added title from the Los Angeles Clippers as a means for prying him loose from the remaining years of his coaching contract with the Boston Celtics last year.

But it won't work with the Pistons.

It's not about maintaining a blueprint but rather creating it. There's too much attention to detail as the director of basketball operations, especially for a franchise seeking an escape from the competitive abyss.

There really isn't any down period in a basketball presidency. It doesn't matter how many basketball eyes Van Gundy trusts as his subordinates out there in collegiate outposts on wintry nights attempting to find that raw diamond in the next draft. Van Gundy himself must be directly involved.

But he'll be coaching in Milwaukee and Minnesota, trying to squeeze the maximum out of the talent he inherited.

Both the coaching and franchise supervision could suffer under those conditions.

This was another public relations move for Gores. Another attempt at convincing an increasingly disinterested public that NBA basketball is still relevant in the Detroit area.

I'm sure he's pleased that he snatched Van Gundy away from the Warriors with the promise of organizational control. But it was an unnecessary risk putting absolute trust in somebody with absolutely no prior basketball administrative experience.

Van Gundy lost previous battles with management in regards to his occasionally combative coaching style. He butted heads with Dwight Howard as the Orlando Magic's head coach, ultimately leading to his dismissal two years ago.

But this time, he would have the backing of the front office because he would be the head of the front office.

Perhaps that ensures that Van Gundy the Pistons president will keep Van Gundy the Pistons head coach longer than 50 games next season.